Python Hyena Driven (2001): Dir: Renny Harlin / Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Kip Pardue, Estella Warren, Burt Reynolds, Gina Gershon: Scene after scene of speeding around a track and wrecking automobiles in gushing style. Title refers to persistence and endurance both professionally and emotionally. Kip Pardue is the headline race car driver who loses his championship and wipes out several times due to pressure. Burt Reynolds plays the big promoter who summons Sylvester Stallone to whip him into shape. Director Renny Harlin often partakes in big budget spectacles such as Cutthroat Island, and here he employs every stereotype within reach. The concept is a yawner structured around repetitious race action including a pointless race about the city streets. Stallone is flat in what appears to be a tailor made role. Pardue has potential but he is in the wrong movie. He plays a guy dealing with the wrong woman and a declining track record. Reynolds's role is thankless and only serves as a reminder that viewers should be watching Smokey and the Bandit instead of this road kill. Estella Warren is given a role that is the equivalent to a male fantasy. Gina Gershon is also wasted here although perhaps had she played the lead female then perhaps it might have had better clout on that end. While the race action is exhilarating, the screenplay is produced into a a film that will likely drive viewers to sleep. Score: 3 / 10

hendohendrik Driven was originally pitched to Formula 1 as a way to crack the US market before the long awaited Grand Prix return to the US in 2000. Fortunately for the F1 administration, they declined to go ahead with the project, a project which has now uncategorically become the worst automotive racing film in history; both in present and in the foreseeable future. Even in millennia from now, when humans have developed extreme degrees of empathy towards failures of past generations, this film will be nothing but a scorched memory on our great civilisation.This film will, undoubtedly, cause you to lose that last finite ounce of faith that you had in Hollywood's ability to convey a true motor-racing film onto the big screen. Dashed will be your optimism and hope, washed away in a bath of tremendous pain, anger and loss. For you shall never be able to enjoy another F1 or Indycar style movie with the disconcerting knowledge that it has been horrendously attempted before in mind-bloggling array of painful acting, shameful dialogue and epilepsy inducing cinematography.This film should not be approached at any time, any close contact with both its cover, disc or start menu may cause a debilitating and horrible emotion that, up to the release of Driven in 2001, was unbeknown to mankind.Please for the love of god ban this film in all UN and non-UN recognised nations, territories, isles, treaties, ice-shelves and water-borne land masses both natural and man-made.

Kevin Lewis The story, the dialog, the racing, the physics, I am just amazed at how bad this movie is.I am trying to think of any redeeming qualities of this film and the only thing I can come up with is that the people you think will be the bad guys aren't. But it's not any sort of mystery.Unfortunately, it's all about poorly executed story line ... actually, story lines. There are a few of them, and each and every one is poorly done.This movie never should have been made. Reynolds fans, Stallone fans, racing fans and movie fans should all stay away from this one.

Abedsbrother ...but it can be hard to find sometimes. I remember, when it first appeared in theaters, some friends called it "Rocky on wheels." That, it definitely is not. More of Stallone's story filtered through in Rocky. Here, I have the impression that half of the story was jettisoned for "slowing down the action." For there is plenty of action. The speed and horror of crashing are well communicated, as is - strangely enough - the simple thrill of racing. Harlin does a good job with the action sequences, making the moment of impact truly impressive. Racing relies so much on instinct rather than preplanned thought; the pit crew and support staff can only prepare and plan so much - the race still revolves around the driver. Racing is an old sport, and any tried-and-true fans who rent or buy this film hoping accurate, down-to-the-nub details will be disappointed. Harlin and Stallone take plenty of dramatic license. The famous chase through the streets of Chicago? Come on. While obviously something like that would never happen, I understand that Harlin and Stallone were trying to communicate the rage of a rejected young man in a unique and forceful manner. I can allow for that; but the chase went on far too long, almost as though it were enjoying the spectacle for its own sake. Just don't say you weren't warned.Still, in between the racing montages and the overly-loud boom-boom music, there are some good parts. Robert Sean Leonard of "House" fame turns a really great performance. Stallone is strangely given little to do - the story of his character, Joe Tanto, is truncated, giving the impression that is where a lot of cutting happened so the film focuses more on Jimmy Bly (a suitably intense Kip Pardue). This is unfortunate, because I speculate that it is Tanto's back-story that is the real catalyst for the final climatic race. Certain elements of the story felt forced as a result. Our introduction to Joe Tanto happens with little warning or preamble, and exactly why Carl Henry (Burt Reynolds) thought Tanto could help the situation is never clearly stated. Stallone is perfectly cast as the old veteran with a few good races left in him; but , save for the ending, all his character does is dispense advice throughout the film. We see his impact on others, but never really see the impact of events on him. And this is ultimately what drags Driven down: is it about Bly (Pardue) or Tanto (Stallone)? They assembled some good young acting talent, had Stallone ready to play the embattled-but-charming man of wisdom, had Burt Reynolds ready to chew up any scenery he was given. What was 'wrong' in the '80s for Stallone was 'right' for this movie: if it was more about his character, Joe Tanto, his relationship with Carl Henry (Reynolds), and the changes Tanto had to make to help a younger driver and allow himself to get back a little dignity, suddenly you'd have a pretty good film on your hands. Instead, what we have is an assemblage of racing montages with fragments of a story in between - a real wasted opportunity.